Act 14: If the Price is Right

I made a price book this week!  Woot!  Wondering what a price book is?  A book of prices.  End of post.

Just kidding :-)

I learned about the price book idea from reading Time Magazine's blog It's Your Money.  This blog has been a bit disappointing as it is mostly about ways to save money and not about money management and financial things in general.  I didn't know that at first.  But it did once give me a 30% off coupon to a shoe store so I finally got to replace my worn out boots, so I keep it around.  Regardless, it linked to an article one day about price books.  It talked about how people don't really know what they pay for their goods and don't comparison shop the way they should.  It recommended that each person make a list of items they buy regularly and pick 3 to 5 stores at which you might potentially shop.  Then print out your list and go price your items. 

I had a hard time keeping my list under control.  I think the article recommended the basket of goods be around 30 items.  Mine was 51.  I covered all your major grocery categories... meat, dairy, produce, packaged foods, and toiletries.  The stores I priced at were Hy-Vee, Jewel, Walmart, Target, and Walgreens.  For the purposes of experiment I eliminated Target and Walgreens from the results.  Neither of the ones near me sells produce or meat so the data just wasn't as comparable (no Super Target over on this side of the river!).

It was a little time consuming to price my items at the different stores, but really it ended up only being a couple of hours.  I wanted to upload my spreadsheet but I don't seem to be able to do that, which is too bad because it was pretty cool!  For each item the lowest price is highlighted in yellow and the highest price is in red font.  Unless you have a Mac, in which case Microsoft chose not to include support for conditional formatting in your software and you won't see any of my pretty colors.  Not that I'm bitter.  Doesn't matter though, currently none of you can see the spreadsheet at all.  Moving on.

The first thing I learned from viewing my results was this:  NEVER buy anything at Walgreens.  Holy crap.  Ibuprofen, allergy medicine, and body wash are $3 more expensive there than anywhere else.  Same item size and everything.  They were consistently expensive on all the products they had.  Convenience is not cheap.

The results were as I expected between the big three.

	# of Goods	Total Price	Difference ($)
Jewel	51	$224.73
Hy-Vee	51	$203.56	-$21.17
Wal-Mart	51	$186.45	-$17.11

 I should probably say that I currently shop at Hy-Vee.  I switched about a year ago when my roommate went there and discovered how much cheaper it was.  This kind of proves it.. $21 in savings is probably worth driving an extra half mile.  Turns out though, I could drive a mile farther down the road and save another $17 by shopping at Wal-Mart.  I kind of already knew that.  And it would be worth it.

Here's my issue:  have you seen their produce?  It's possible other Wal-Mart stores have better looking fruits and veggies but I am never impressed when I go in the store near me.  Not by the selection or the quality.  And after looking at it, I'm not all that impressed with their meats either.  Now it's a quality issue.  I buy a lot of produce and I want it to be good.  Great even.  I'm all for saving money but I'm not having financial hardships and at this point I'm not sure I want to sacrifice quality for $17.

 Being the analytical person I am though, I couldn't leave it at that.  There has to be a compromise.  What about shopping at 2 stores?  Experts recommend it to save money and get better deals.  Here's the breakdown:

	# of Goods	Total Price	Savings over Hy-Vee only
Hy-Vee Dairy, Produce, Meat	29	$97.88
Wal-Mart Grocery, Toiletries	22	$94.58
Total	51	192.46	-$11.10

I chose to buy produce and meat at Hy-Vee because of the quality issue.  Dairy is actually the only sub-category that was cheaper to buy from Hy-Vee.  The grocery category (packaged foods like bread, cereal, snacks, pop, etc) and toiletries come from Wal-Mart.  This setup would save me $11 over shopping at Hy-Vee alone.  Not bad.  Worth shopping at two stores?  I lean towards no, but I haven't had tried it either.  They're on the same road basically so the logistics are easy.  It would be the extra time and hassle that will ultimately make the difference.  

Maybe on weeks when my shopping list doesn't have much meat or produce on it, I'll head to Wal-Mart and save a few extra bucks that week.  Or maybe I won't change my actions at all.  The point of the exercise was to become a more educated consumer, and I have.  My behavior, whatever it is, is now a deliberate choice driven by actual data rather than just being driven by whatever store I happen to feel like going to that day.  Which is probably a lot more reliable!

Act 12 and 13ish: Planting and Graduation

Sorry for the slight hiatus from posting, but it got busy there for a bit.  I was working my butt off trying to get the house and yard ready for my family to come visit and a bunch of people to come over for my graduation party.  This was major spring cleaning time, including finishing up several house projects that just never quite got crossed off the list for some reason.  But now that's all over and despite some necessary after-visitors cleaning that hasn't been done yet, I'm back!

During the craziness, I did finally get around to planting the garden outside (and it finally got warm enough).  A friend recommended a method called square foot gardening, which uses raised garden boxes divided into one foot squares, with something different planted in each square.  It recommends a soil mix of 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 peat, and 1/3 compost.  This prevents digging up your own yard and the purchased soil is much less likely to grow weeds than ground soil.  So anyhoo, after reading up on it I decided to give it a try.  Steve built a beauteous 5 x 3 ft box and we got to work.  First was the transplanted tomatoes and peppers... 2 slicer tomatoes, 2 hybrid (cherry) tomatoes, 2 red bell peppers, and 2 pepperoncinis.  They're all between 2 and 5 inches tall and the pride and joy of my plant growing career (which consequently started with these plants).  We also planted seeds... 3 cucumbers and 3 green beans.

Of course it rained HARD for the two whole days after the planting.  It just beat the crap out of the poor little plants.  One slicer tomato looked really bad.  I'm not sure it'll make it :(  Only time will tell.



After all cleaning and planting was done, my family showed up my graduation weekend.  It was awesome that they all came, and it made the difference between me deciding to walk in the ceremony or not.  The University of Iowa offers their nighttime MBA program in several cities in Iowa, so I was able to take classes right here without driving to Iowa City or having to do it online.  It was convenient and a really good program, but because I wasn't ever on campus I didn't really feel as connected to the University.  If they hadn't been there, I wouldn't have felt the need to participate for myself.  Even during the ceremony it didn't seem like that big of a deal, until I walked across the stage and received my diploma.  See my name on that piece of paper was a much bigger deal than I expected it to be!  I may have even been a little misty-eyed :) 

Seeing my family was the best part though.  It's the first time they've all come to visit me and we had a blast.  And it doesn't matter how old you are... hearing your parents say they are proud of you is the best feeling in the world :-D


"The tassel's worth the hassle!"  ~Author Unknown

Act 11: Sweet Home Chicago

I spent this past weekend in Chicago and it was fantastic!  Good times were had by all.  A few things I did that qualify for this here blog…

1)      Rock Bottom Brewery’s RockFest –

This event was a beer tasting featuring 46 microbrews from Iowa, Illinios, and Wisconsin.  It was FUN.  The only “beer tasting” I’ve ever been to was the Sam Adam’s Brewery that I talked about in Act 2 of this blog.  This was totally different.  Big room, lots of people, and a tasting glass (kind of like a wine glass, but not exactly).  You got a sheet that listed all beers, the brewery and city they came from, and the brewmaster’s name.  There were tables with taps and you just went around and had them fill you up with whatever interested you.  A solid 3 oz pour I’d say.  Multiply that by 46 beers and you could be hurting!  You learn quickly how to do it though.   We had 6 people so we’d each try to get a different beer and pass glasses to try them all.  Then when you’re done (and I did taste every single one!), you can go back for a glass of a few of your favorites.

If you like beer, I’d highly recommend finding an event like this.  You have no idea what they can do with beer flavors until you do.  There were a few barrel-aged beers… one tasted like scotch and two others tasted like whiskey.  I mean almost exactly like them!  No burn though, because, well, beer doesn’t burn.  Another smelled (and slightly tasted) like a York Peppermint Patty, another was sort of tropical in flavor.  There was such a variety that you were bound to find something that you liked.  My favorite?  The Cinco de Mayo Vienna Lager brewed in Orland Park.

2)     STOMP

The idea behind STOMP is making music using your hands, feet, and everyday objects like garbage cans, lids, brooms, buckets, etc.  It was at the Bank of America Theater in Chicago this past weekend and it was pretty entertaining.  2 things really amazed me about the show.  First was the acoustics.  It didn’t seem like these people hand their hands mic’d, but man… they snapped their fingers and the sound filled the theater.  I can barely snap my fingers at all!  The second aspect that really grabbed me was how each person kept their own rhythm going no matter what else was going on.  There were so many different parts being “played” at once that I couldn’t keep them straight.  At least if you’re playing in a band, or even singing, you can hear your part to an extent (clarinets sound different than trumpets after all) but here the sounds were all similar and most of the time only one person was doing each part.  I wouldn’t have stood a chance!

 

3)     Cubs Game

Alright, you caught me.  Going to a Cubs game is not new… it was actually my 4^th time.  BUT, I’m saying t qualifies because of where I sat.  I usually somewhere in the 200s sections, but this time the tickets were a birthday present for Steve so I splurged for something better.  Section 111, about 15-20 rows behind the Cubs dugout staring directly at 3^rd base.  Close enough to see facial expressions.  It draws you into the game when you’re that close!  It’s easier to follow the action and get excited (not that I’m not always excited when I go to Cubs games, but still).  I have to admit, I’m in serious danger of becoming a “seat snob”.  Which is too expensive even for the 2 games/year I go to.  Let's face it though.  I'll still be happy sitting anywhere.

  It says there beneath the scoreboard that "The Cubs are gonna win today"... and they did, 10-5 :-)

"I give you Chicago.  It is not London and Harvard.  It is not Paris and buttermilk.  It is American in every chitling  and sparerib.  It is alive from snout to tail" ~H.L. Mencken

Act 10: Powdered Experimentation

My roommate, Steve, asked for Scotcheroos for his birthday, then took it back saying that they were too unhealthy. I had something in mind that might make them healthier (not healthy, just healthier) so I set out to give it a try. 3 pans of scotcheroos later, I might be on to something!

The secret ingredient here is PB2. It’s a powdered peanut butter that you mix with water to achieve peanut butter-like consistency. I’ve heard about it from women at work before… it has a huge following in the Weight Watchers community. I was able to find it in the Health Market section of my Hy-Vee.

The Stats

2 Tbsp of JIF creamy peanut butter: 190 cals / 16 g fat
2 Tbsp of PB2: 53 cals / 2 g fat

The Flavor

The PB2 isn’t as creamy or as peanutty as JIF, but it’s not bad. It might not be my first choice, but I can see why it appeals to people.


As I mentioned above, it took 3 batches to get this recipe right. Despite frustration after the first pan was a failure, I learned that cooking and baking are all about experimentation.

Pan #1

This batch was made to recipe (from the Rice Krispies website of course!). The recipe calls for 1 cup of peanut butter so I diligently mixed 18 tablespoons of PB2 with 9 tablespoons of water to get my full cup.

I brought my corn syrup and sugar mixture to a boil, removed it from the heat and mixed in my peanut butter. And it liquefied. Normally peanut butter will get runnier with heat, but this stuff just disintegrated. I should have stopped there but I wanted to see it through. I mixed in my Rice Krispies, pressed it into a pan, spread my melted chocolate on top and left it to set. Or so I thought. Hours later after putting it in the fridge to harden more it was still runny. I cut a piece out to try and the cereal wouldn’t hold together. I looked at the pan later and the “peanut sauce” had actually seeped and covered the bottom of the pan where that piece I cut out used to be. Not good.

Now, I was disappointed but I also thought I knew what went wrong. You mix the powder with water to make the peanut butter. Adding it to more liquid (the corn syrup/sugar mixture) is just too much. It’s like you added triple the water you wanted and just made peanut sauce. Solution? No water! Let the corn syrup act as the liquid.

Later Steve suggested just using less water. A valid idea I hadn’t come up with on my own. What can I say? I deal in extremes. He also convinced me to give it another shot. Even though I thought I had a solution, I was hesitant to buy more ingredients and try it. I don’t like not succeeding. I don’t even like saying ‘failing’! But experimentation is how you come up with great new things, so the next day I gave it another go with 2 half-batches.

Pans #2 and #3 – The Half Batches

I made two half batches so as to waste fewer ingredients. One used no water and one used half the water. I used 12 tbsps of PB2 for each half batch because I didn’t think the peanut sauce in the first pan was peanutty enough. I could have gotten away with less.

For Pan #2 (the “No Water” pan) I just dumped the peanut powder right into the hot corn syrup mixture. It became creamy and smelled like good old peanut butter! When we went to add the Rice Krispies however, we couldn’t add them all. A half batch calls for 3 cups but without the water there just wasn’t enough liquid. 2.5 cups went in but it was too much and made the bars a little hard, though they set up very nicely and tasted pretty good.

Pan #3 was the “Half Water” pan. 12 tbsps of PB2 would normally be mixed with 6 tbsps of water so I used three. It mixed nicely with the corn syrup and I was able to mix in all 3 cups of cereal. Pretty amazing that 3 tbsps of water got me another cup of cereal! That little amount of water didn’t set up well though. The cereal stayed together much better than Pan #1, but it was still way too sticky and not quite set, especially on the bottom.

The Winner

Pan #2! Not using water made the end result more peanut butter-y and let it harden the way they are supposed to. My batch wasn’t perfect, but it was close and I think with another test I could perfect it. For best results I’d recommend only using about 4.5 cups of cereal instead of 6 for a normal sized batch, or adding an extra tbsp or so of corn syrup (or even 1 tbsp of water) to the mix to allow enough liquid for all the cereal. Just don’t overdo the liquid… remember, 3 tbsps of water is too much! Either way, the end result should be pretty good.


And as for the nutrition stats… using the PB2 powdered peanut butter as I did in the winning batch saves you about 1,000 calories and 106 grams of fat per pan. If you cut 15 decent sized bars out of a 9x13 pan, you’d save about 70 calories and 7 grams of fat per bar. That’s healthier!

Act 9: Born Tall

I have a few good friends who are in graduate school studying Zoology and Aquarium Studies (Master's of Biology to be exact).  I always hear about their classes and the cool places they are held (Shedd Aquarium, Nanette Marsh, etc).  I've helped proofread their papers and make model zoos (the toilet paper roll trees were stunningly realistic!).  Most of what they talk about when they get going is way over my head because I'm not a biology person, but that's okay.  They're still a fantastically fun and entertaining group.  And if I ever feel left out due to my lack of knowledge in their field I just yell out "glucocorticoids!!" and they go crazy.  They explained to me what it was once... something about hormones... all I know is it gets a funny reaction :)

Being an animal lover, I'm always a little jealous of any hands-on experience they get with critters of any size.  I want to hold a sugar glider or help with a study on the cognitive abilities of elephants or shear alpaca!  Alas, these things are not to be (any time soon anyway).  Though I am still holding out hope for riding a camel.  But today my connections did allow me to see something amazing.

Last Sunday, Niabi Zoo had it's second giraffe baby in 4 months and my friends were able to get me into the still-closed-until-May zoo and into the usually-closed giraffe barn to see this 8-day old wonder. 

It's a little girl (no name as they are having a contest to allow the public to help name her).  She was 5'5" when she was born... that's as tall as me!  In fact, the other giraffe baby, a boy born in December, was 5'9" inches tall!!

She was adorable with her slightly wobbly legs and her horns that weren't quite straightened out yet.  The thing that struck me most was her eyes.  They were so gentle.   So sweet looking.  You just wanted to pet her and hug her and take her home with you.  Mama giraffe was a little more reserved looking, as any mother should be when 6 short, tail-less, two-legged animals stand there staring at her baby for 20 minutes.  She did give the baby a few kisses, licks, and nuzzles while we were watching.  What a cool sight :)

And Carrie... I made sure to post this before going to bed tonight because I know you always look for it on Sunday night.  You're welcome!

Act 8: Par for the... First Time!

Besides Junior Golfers back in my hometown, my golfing career has mostly consisted of playing once or twice a year with my dad.  Sometimes not even that.  I'm not impressive by any means, but over the last couple of years I've taken more of an interest and improved.  You know, I'm shooting in the low to mid 60s instead of the 90s.  On nine holes.  Hey, it's a start!  I actually even purchased clubs last summer.  Real adult clubs.  Quite a departure from the gray and pink clubs I'd had since I was 10.  Maybe they have something to do with my improvement?  Who knows.

I do know that this year I've already golfed three times and it's only April 15th.  That's a lot!  And although I couldn't call this post 'par for the course' since that's unlikely to ever happen (ever...), for the first time ever I did par a hole!  It was at Highland Springs yesterday on hole 4 which is a par 3.  My drive was was solid but went into the bunker on the left side of the green.  I was able to chip out of it onto the green and put it in though.  A very rare 1-putt saves the day! 

It definitely boosted my confidence for the day, which is good.  I have a major confidence problem when it comes to golfing.  I always assume I'm way worse than anyone else.  But with the exception of my 11 on the 9th hole (I was tired!), I held my own and even impressed they guys with my mostly consistent drives.  And hey, I didn't hit it behind me.  Two of my foursome did!

I've heard it said that no matter how bad the rest of the round is, there will always be one shot that makes you want to come back.  Yesterday, that par was it.

"Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad." ~A.A. Milne

Act 6 & 7: Change and Chop

This weekend was a two-fer!  I didn't have anything new planned to do, but lucky for me a couple of things came up.  Funny how things work out :-)

I went to my hometown for Easter and got to see a few friends that I don't see too often.  It was a fantastic weekend!  I spent Saturday afternoon with my friend Katie's family.  This is one of my favorite families of all time.  And a rare one that makes me feel just as welcome and comfortable as my own family.  They're fantastic :)  The exciting part of this was that Katie's older sister Beth was home for the holiday with her kids and Nicole (11 months) was just figuring out the walking thing.  We had her strolling back and forth across the living room the whole time.  It was so cute!  This is the most recent picture I could find of little Nicole... unfortunately it's about 5 months old.  She's only gotten better with age though!

As it always does when around children, it came up that I have never changed a diaper.  I know, I'm 27.  But hey, I'm the youngest of my siblings and nearly all of my cousins and I never babysat!  The opportunity just never presented itself.  Until just recently, children cried any time I came near (I've heard they can smell fear!).  However, with Nicole right there I had no excuse.  Next time she needed changing, I had dibs.  Now, as most parents know, changing a diaper is not rocket science.  Take old one off, slide new one under butt, attach velcro tabs.  Besides not making it tight enough the first time, I did a stellar job.  This diaper was just wet though.  Next time my dear friends will have other plans for me, and I'm sure that time will be more interesting!


The second opportunity presented itself back at home when my friend Heather asked me to cut her hair.  I laughed at first too, but she was serious!  She has very long hair and only wanted a couple of inches of split ends cut off so I decided to give it a go.  Her hair is slightly curly.  That and the length mean it's pretty forgiving of not-completely-straight cuts.  Which is good, because I cannot cut wrapping paper in a straight line to save my life.  You think I'm kidding, but you should look at them.  It's awful. 

But... back to the hair.  For ease of cleanup we did this outside with Heather sitting on the front porch railing.  The whole neighborhood could have watched if they wanted, but I don't think anyone did.  Her hair was dry so it was easy to make sure I wasn't cutting it too short.  I forgot to take a "before" picture so below is a "towards the end" picture.  I evened it all out after this was taken too.  It made me feel like I was part artist/part mad scientist.  And it made me want to cut again, so long as the person doesn't mind some major experimentation and a learning curve.  Any takers? 

"Life is like a mustache.  It can be wonderful or terrible, but it always tickles."